Opening the psalms,
letting in whole days
between lying down
in the shade of a valley
and a path’s steep climb.
Opening to the psalms
that don’t seem like psalms
and the ones that do,
that send roots into the river like
weeping overheard.
The wrist of a psalm.
A garment being torn.
The plowman’s psalm.
The warrior’s. The prisoner’s.
The king’s.
The seeds of a psalm
lost to us, lost in time
on a hill of apricot trees
overlooking a city
with its alleys, its gates
opening to the psalms the way
folded paper flowers
open from a shell
dropped in a glass of water,
swaying open, blossoming.